By Morenike Taire
As the Rotary Club celebrated its 107th a fortnight ago, the issue uppermost on the mind of the global body appears to be nothing other than their baby, the Kick Polio campaign launched over a decade ago and which has been immensely successful.

Unfortunately, Nigeria remains one of the countries holding back the Rotary International dream of ending the scourge of Polio Worldwide. According to the organization’s figures, fewer than 650 polio cases have been confirmed for 2011 worldwide, less than half the 1,352 infections reported in 2010.

*Busuyi Onabolu

Overall, the annual number of polio cases has plummeted by more than 99 per cent since the initiative was launched in 1988, when polio infected about 350,000 children a year. More than two billion children have been immunized in 122 countries, preventing five million cases of paralysis and 250,000 deaths.

Recently, Polio has been on the lips of politicians, with the Lagos State governor Babatunde Fashola claiming to have no polio cases left in Lagos, a claim substantiated by the Chairman, Nigeria National PolioPlus Committee, Rotarian, ‘Busuyi Onabolu .

In this chat with Morenike Taire, Onabolu also speaks about the specific issues that make the Nigerian case unique, while sending a message to nigerian mothers through this platform.

Is it true about Lagos ? If Lagos has eradicated Polio, why can the rest of Nigeria not use the Lagos model?

What is the Lagos model? If you know the size of Nigeria you will appreciate the challenges we face. There are some communities 10km apart and you don’t have more than 4 or 5 people . They must be reached. Where do you put a primary health center and even if you have healthcare centers all over the place do you have the staff?

We started by giving the first solar refrigerators in this country – 36 of them . When we get something going we expect government to support us and they are doing that but when a battery needs replacing and the local governments are not providing the funds what do expect?

It is all good to have the necessary legislature but you must back it up by having the other facilities available, by training the manpower and doing a lot of things to support this.

Even many educated mothers have misgivings. The issue, for instance, of continuous vaccination. A lot of mothers are worried about overdosage. Is there such a thing?

When you are talking of immunization in general  there are very many childhood diseases that are vaccine preventable. Polio  is one of them and polio you can take a bottle of. Those two drops cost about 50cents. You are going to be drinking a lot of valuable money.

They also have periods when they should do other immunizations which are inject able. So this is why we need very competent people to carry those out and I think many states and local governments recognize that and we do not do injections from time to time.

What message do you have to give to mothers in general— not those in rural areas who wont get the message anyway but women who will now be an influence.

There is virtually no family that has not been affected by polio. Every mother owes it as a duty to immunize their babies. These babies cannot talk but then they came through you. Make sure that child grows up healthy. In the case of polio over 120 countries have seized polio. Less than 1000 are affected.

Do they not have similar issues in India, in Philippines— social issues, infrastructure. Why is Nigeria’s case different?

To make your matters worse they are even fighting wars in Northern India, Northern Pakistan, Afghanistan. We are not facing wars. There are other countries that have aced wars and have other countries that have faced wars and have overcome it. It is the willingness of the people.

They don’t have those kind of challenges. Two year ago we had only 21cases of polio in Nigeria and we were thinking we would finish it last year but then, bingo! Elections came. Local Government chairmen, State governors, everybody now had time for that and after that they are going to courts. It becomes difficult for anything to happen.

Partners provide some kind of funding for the program but this funding must be matched by the states and Local Governments. People are not being paid when they go to do their work.

Politicians and civil servants are just recruiting anybody as job for the boys. How will there be quality work? Those are the kind of things that have militated against Nigeria. Now we have no choice, with the eyes of the world on Nigeria and government now taking an interest, declaration of presidential task force, which has been on for a few weeks we hope things will really move.

Tell me more about the presidential task force.

It was established last September but yet to be inaugurated. It was because the number of polio cases started to go up and government are concerned. Why should Nigeria be in the black book of everybody so let us get the job within 24 months and he made a promise.

When a president speaks it becomes a commitment. John Kennedy said America would reach the moon in 10 years. They did, so if Mr. President says he will finish polio in 2 years it will be a thing of joy for him to finish it in one.